Time in Palestine

The violence may subside, but it will return unless a true peace is on the horizon

Off-duty soldiers go jogging with submachine guns slung across their chests. Men and women who have never owned a firearm hesitate at the door of gun shops after the laws on weapon ownership were relaxed. People eat at home, and plan their trips to the supermarket or their bus journeys to avoid the places where the Palestinian stabbing attacks, which have surprised and frightened Israelis in recent weeks, seem most likely.

On the Arab side, parents worry that a loved son or daughter will decide to trade their own life for that of an Israeli, or that a family member will be caught in crossfire. The technical security people call these stabbings “inspiration attacks”. Rarely can a word have been more ill chosen, because it suggests something uplifting, and there is nothing uplifting…